Global gene expression profiling and other technologies have identified a large number of genes whose expression is altered, e.g., in diseased tissues or in tissues and cells treated with pharmaceutical agents (Lockhart and Winzeler (2000) “Genomics, gene expression and DNA arrays” Nature 405:827-36 and Gunther et al. (2003) “Prediction of clinical drug efficacy by classification of drug-induced genomic expression profiles in vitro” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:9608-13). Such genes are being increasingly used as biomarkers in disease diagnosis, staging, and prognosis (Golub et al. (1999) “Molecular classification of cancer: class discovery and class prediction by gene expression monitoring” Science 286:531-7); target identification, validation and pathway analysis (Roberts et al. (2000) “Signaling and circuitry of multiple MAPK pathways revealed by a matrix of global gene expression profiles” Science 287:873-80); drug screening (Hamadeh et al. (2002) “Prediction of compound signature using high density gene expression profiling” Toxicol Sci 67:232-40); and studies of drug efficacy, structure-activity relationship, toxicity, and drug-target interactions (Gerhold et al. (2001) “Monitoring expression of genes involved in drug metabolism and toxicology using DNA microarrays” Physiol Genomics 5:161-70 and Thomas et al. (2001) “Identification of toxicologically predictive gene sets using cDNA microarrays” Mol Pharmacol 60:1189-94). As biomarkers are identified, their involvement in disease management and drug development will need to be evaluated in higher throughput and broader populations of samples. Simpler and more flexible expression profiling technology that allows the expression analysis of multiple genes with higher data quality and higher throughput is therefore needed.
Levels of RNA expression have traditionally been measured using Northern blot and nuclease protection assays. However, these approaches are time-consuming and have limited sensitivity, and the data generated are more qualitative than quantitative in nature. Greater sensitivity and quantification is possible with reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) based methods, such as quantitative real-time RT-PCR, but these approaches have low multiplex capabilities (Bustin (2002) “Quantification of mRNA using real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR): trends and problems” J Mol Endocrinol 29:23-39 and Bustin and Nolan (2004) “Pitfalls of quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction” J Biomol Tech. 15:155-66). Microarray technology has been widely used in discovery research, but its moderate sensitivity and its relatively long experimental procedure have limited its use in high throughput expression profiling applications (Epstein and Butow (2000) “Microarray technology—enhanced versatility, persistent challenge” Curr Opin Biotechnol. 11:36-41).
Most of the current methods of mRNA quantification require RNA isolation, reverse transcription, and target amplification, each of which introduces variability that leads to low overall assay precision. Recently, a multiplex screening assay for mRNA quantification combining nuclease protection with luminescent array detection was reported (Martel et al. (2002) “Multiplexed screening assay for mRNA combining nuclease protection with luminescent array detection” Assay Drug Dev Technol. 1:61-71). Although this assay has the advantage of measuring mRNA transcripts directly from cell lysates, limited assay sensitivity and reproducibility were reported. Another multiplex mRNA assay without the need for RNA isolation was also reported (Tian et al. (2004) “Multiplex mRNA assay using electrophoretic tags for high-throughput gene expression analysis” Nucleic Acids Res. 32:e126). This assay couples the primary Invader® mRNA assay with small fluorescent molecule eTags that can be distinguished by capillary electrophoresis through distinct charge-to-mass ratios of eTags. However, this assay requires the use of a specially designed and synthesized set of eTagged signal probes, complicated capillary electrophoresis equipment, and a special data analysis package.
Among other aspects, the present invention provides methods that overcome the above noted limitations and permit rapid, simple, and sensitive detection of multiple mRNAs (and/or other nucleic acids) simultaneously. A complete understanding of the invention will be obtained upon review of the following.